Drinking Life (Keeper of the Water Book 1) (10 page)

The next few days pass in a blur of boredom. My mother is still angry—or maybe nervous—but says very little to me. She spends the majority of her time in the Adventure Guides trailer even though we haven’t had a single tour since the bachelor party. I can tell the lack of work bothers Dad, who aimlessly mills about the house and the trailer and the garage, looking to do any chore, no matter how menial. If he scrubs the canoes one more time, we’ll be able to turn them sideways and eat dinner off them. Even if we don’t share the same bloodline, I still take after him for my inability to sit still.

I hope to spend more time with Celeste but that doesn’t work out. With me being suspended, she has to chauffeur Cassie to and from school. Since there are no tours to be given, she isn’t home very much. I don’t know where she spends her days but I’m left with the feeling again of being avoided. And spending time with Cassie is also out of the question: the one time I’m outside when she and Celeste pull up after school, Cassie gives me such a nasty sneer that Heather’s dirty looks seem friendly in comparison. The only satisfaction I take is that John no longer drives her home, though she’s undoubtedly told him that I’m to blame for that. For all I know, my attempts to keep them apart are making me their shared enemy and bringing them closer together.

We might not be living in this area too much longer for their love to bloom anyway. ‘Pocono Adventure Guides’ hasn’t quite taken off the way my parents hoped. We’ve had to move several times due to declining business so I always think the worst when a few days pass without any tours. I wonder if another move might do me some good but I don’t have much hope for that. After all, my biggest problems will follow me no matter where I go.

The only activity I look forward to each day is walking down the long dirt driveway to our mailbox. I paid a few dollars extra and selected the ‘RUSH’ option for the DNA test but there was no guarantee about how soon the results would be sent. Still, I make sure to reach the mailbox first every day. My heart fills with dread each time I flip through the mail but relief each time the lab results don’t come. A part of me wishes the results will be lost in the mail forever.

My father senses my growing depression so he wakes me bright and early on Friday morning. He hands me some cash, about a hundred bucks.

“What’s this for?”

“I need you to run an errand for me,” he says. “Go to The Outdoor Super-Store and get one of those 3-D targets you’ve been begging me for.”

“Are you sure now is the best time to be spending money on something like that?” I ask.

He winces at the suggestion of business being slower than usual. “You sound like your mother. But sometimes you have to spend money to make money. I’m not buying this for you; I’m buying it for your class. Business
will
pick up soon and I want our customers to have the best experience possible. Now get going.”

He pauses in my bedroom doorway. I can sense he wants to come with me, wants me to
ask him
to come, wants things to be like before. Had this been a week ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to ask him along. But now I don’t, at least not right away.

“So… do you wanna come, too?”

He frowns. I guess I wasn’t convincing enough.

“That’s okay. The canoes aren’t going to wash themselves.”

Girls my age are usually excited to go shopping for clothes or make-up; some prefer music or even books. But the thought of buying a 3-D target shaped like a deer—ooooh, or maybe a bear—makes me feel like I’m five years old and it’s Christmas morning. I hate the thought of hunting deer—or any other animal—purely for sport, so some sick hunter can stuff its head and hang it over their fireplace. I understand hunting if it’s done for food but I don’t even think that happens much anymore. This isn’t the time of the Native Americans roaming the plains.

Still, I’ll look forward to shooting something besides the plain target, even if the deer target will be stationary.

I hurry to the Jeep and drive away from our tiny compound, glad to escape for a few hours. I never thought I’d say this but I actually miss being in school—at least the constant ridicule gives me something to do. I drive barely five minutes toward the super-store when I spot a road leading off the highway. The road looks like one of dozens of others I pass along the way and before last week, I would have driven by without giving it a second glance.

But now I know this road or more importantly, who
lives
on this road. Common sense tells me to drive by and don’t look back, to focus on what I set out to do today. However, common sense and I apparently haven’t been meshing recently. As if guided by the invisible hand of trouble-to-come, I jerk the wheel to the side, leaving skid marks on the asphalt as I turn off the highway.

I’ve only driven in John’s neighborhood once but I’ve thought about it so much that I recognize everything—every small cabin, every large mansion. A tiny voice in the back of my mind screams for me to stop and turn around. But what’s the difference between stalking him once or twice? I’m probably crazy either way so I keep going, slowing down as I approach the biggest house of all. John’s house is just as I remember except the garage is closed and there are no motorcycles. At least I can relax knowing that he won’t catch me sneaking around this time—at this time of the day, John would be sitting in history class. Hopefully he’s missing me…

Yeah right. I’m beginning to accept that he’s moved on. I just hope he doesn’t totally hate me when I come back to school. The lure drawing me toward his house has nothing to do with him anyway. I might be able to get over John but
nothing
can shake the thought of the shed behind his house,
nothing
can ease the pull it has on my mind. I’m surprised I’ve kept away from it this long.

I slow the Jeep to a crawl before reaching John’s house, giving myself the perfect view into his backyard. The shed is completed, a tiny fortress of cinderblock and concrete. If it holds nothing more than lawn-care equipment, then it’s the most protected lawnmower on the mountain. But I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something else inside, something important. I don’t know what it could be or how it could possibly pertain to me but the thought gnaws at the back of my mind.

I suddenly have a flash from my last dream: the old woman standing in the bright blue water. I can picture her more clearly now than I could the night before…

HONK! I’m snapped out of my deep thought by the blaring of a car horn just in front of me. I’ve drifted across my lane… again… and the same car as before drives toward me. I swerve again and slam on my brakes, barely avoiding an accident for the second time. When I look in my rearview mirror at John’s neighbor driving away, I can’t blame her for flipping me the middle finger.

My heart pounds so I pull to the side of the road to catch my breath. Before I know it, my hand is pulling on the handle of my door and I step out of the Jeep. An invisible force seems to guide me across the street and toward John’s backyard. I don’t know what I’m going to do once I get there. I pass his driveway. No motorcycles to be seen but there are two huge black pickup trucks with extended cabs and heavy black tinted windows. The only difference between them is the color of the wheels: one is red, the other yellow. I can’t imagine John’s slender body frame behind the wheel of either of these behemoths. His parents or siblings (if he has any) must be home so my good buddy common sense pleads with me to turn around and leave. But the closer I get to the shed, the stronger I feel it pull at me.

I
need
to know what’s inside, regardless if it makes me seem like I’m going crazy. At least the neighborhood is quiet since the residents are at work and the weekend visitors haven’t yet gotten here from New Jersey and New York and Philly. I sneak around back, moving silently and sticking to the shadows of nearby trees. I swear this is the first time I ever sneaked around like this but I move with stealth that must be another innate skill I didn’t know I possess.

Soon I’m just in front of the shed. I don’t know how to describe the feeling but it’s like I’m a totally different person. A heavy padlock keeps the steel door locked—there’s no way it only holds garden tools. But as I grab the lock and begin to shake it, I also realize there’s no way I’m getting it open. Unfortunately, the ability to pick locks is
not
one of my unknown talents. I become so frustrated that I yank at the lock over and over. It would take nothing short of the ‘World’s Strongest Man’ to pull it free but a burst of strength rushes through every part of my body. My muscles feel like they might burst out of my skin—I don’t know how I’m doing this but I continue to pull and pull. A
creaking
sound erupts from the thick padlock that slowly begins to bend under my incredible strength.

“Hey!” someone yells behind me.

The interruption breaks my concentration and the blast of overwhelming strength melts away from my body. I’m out of breath and let go of the padlock, which now has indentations in the thick metal in the shape of my fingers.

“Get away from there,” a second deep voice booms. It has an accent similar to the first voice that yelled.

I spin around to see two mountain-sized men rushing toward me. They wear expensive-looking suits but look nothing like businessmen. They’re both olive-skinned like John but that’s where any similarities end. They’re big and bulky like professional wrestlers and have shaved heads. One of them is ugly; the other even uglier. I don’t know how they could possibly be related to John—maybe older brothers or more likely hideous
step
-brothers? Either way, one looks like he’s about to attack me but the other grabs his arm. I turn to the side and bend my knees in a classic defensive position. I’m ready to fight to protect whatever’s in the shed, even against two goons their size.

“What are
you
doing here?” the ugly one asks. His teeth are so bright white that they can’t be natural.

“I’m sorry,” I lie. I relax when they stop coming toward me but I stay ready for a possible attack. “I was looking for John.”

“In the tool shed?” the ugly one asks.

“Why you want John?” the uglier one intercedes.

“We’re friends,” I lie again.

“You and John are
friends
?”

They look at each other, their hideous faces skewed in curiosity, obviously sensing my lie. The two goons converse animatedly in a language I don’t understand. It’s not until I hear the word
amigo
that I recognize it as Spanish—I wish I hadn’t had such a natural inclination for French when it came time to learn a foreign language in school.

“John is at school,” the ugly one says. “You should leave now and stay away from this place.”

I don’t want to the leave the shed—or more specifically, whatever’s inside the shed—but I know it’s not going anywhere. I nod toward the two goons and slowly walk away, each step away from the shed easier to take. Once I’m inside the Jeep, I steal one final glance at the shed but see the two large men still talking, the uglier one gesturing wildly in my direction. I slam on the gas and speed away before I’m tempted to go back toward the shed… or before John’s two relatives are tempted to come after me.

Once the tingly sensation I feel from the shed passes, I’m horribly embarrassed. How foolish can I possibly make myself out to be to John? There’s no telling what the hell he’ll think of me, not to mention what his relatives think about the strange girl wandering around their backyard. I’m almost home when I’m afraid the second of those questions may be answered.

A huge black truck with heavily tinted windows swerves in and out of the lanes behind me. I swallow hard at the sight, especially when I realize it’s speeding toward
me
. I push the Jeep as fast as it’ll go but its top speed isn’t much more than the company van. By the time I see the sign for ‘Pocono Adventure Guides’, the black truck is only a hundred feet behind me. I turn sharply onto the dirt driveway and nearly swerve right into the trees. I hit a pothole so hard that I probably would’ve bounced right out of the Jeep if not wearing my seatbelt. The truck would certainly handle much better on the dirt, which is why I’m so relieved to see it speed by without turning.

Was it even one of the same trucks or just another local in a hurry to get somewhere? Is my imagination running too wild to control? The thought of the shed is having a greater effect on my mind than I like to admit. Either way, I’m glad to pull the Jeep to a stop in front of my house. I spot movement from behind the trailer but it’s only my father.

“Back so soon?” he asks.

I’m confused for a moment before remembering why I left home in the first place. “Yeah, they were out of the one I wanted. I’ll have to go back this weekend to see if they get it in stock.”

Dad looks down at his watch. I was barely gone long enough to get to The Outdoor Super-Store and back but I don’t care if he believes me or not. He can’t really blame
me
for lying. I can’t even look him in the eye as I give him back the money and turn toward the house.

“Is anything wrong?” he asks.

“Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

I turn to him and huff insolently. I’m starting to understand why Cassie gets so annoyed when Celeste pesters her with questions.